Appropriately enough, yesterday my quote of the day email said, "Link what you say to the cheerful things of life, and leave out the doleful telling of your ills. If you write too often about your trials and troubles you will give your reader the notion that you enjoy them, or at least that you enjoy them for the pleasure they give you to tell about them." Royal Bank of Canada, The Communication of Ideas 76 (rev. ed. 1972).
As poetic and proper as that advice may be, I am going to totally ignore it and tell you about my Monday morning....
It's the week after final exams. Most law students have gone home. I am still in Lynchburg working on two more major assignments. Paper #1 is due Wednesday (December 17) and paper #2 is due December 22. Because of the impending deadline for paper #1, I worked on it until 4 a.m. Monday morning. The dogs woke me up at 7 a.m.--hungry and in need of a walk. By 7:30 a.m. Monday morning, I was back at the computer--staring on paper #1. But there was personal stuff I had to do as well, so I decided to get that out of the way.
First, I spent an hour applying for a new health insurance policy before my old policy lapses. My old policy is with BCBS of North Carolina, and my new poicy is with BCBS of North Carolina, but just to transfer me from one policy to another is much too easy. So, instead, I have to spend the morning answering lots of stupid questions about my health--which BCBS of North Carolina already knows--and I was a little annoyed at what I deemed to be a waste of time.
The next item on my agenda was to find my Ram's Club membership card. Tomorrow is an open basketball practice for Ram's Club members. In spite of all the deadlines, I have worked this trip into my schedule. Tomorrow is reserved for my trip to Chapel Hill; Melissa and Mike (her fiance) are going with me, and we're going to make a day of it. Hopefully Wes can join us, but that's still up in the air. Anyway, I will need my Ram's Club card (I think) to get into the Dean Dome tomorrow. I am also wondering if I should have received tickets for this event since I registered online? Hmmm....Anyway, I search for about an hour in my desk, on my desk, in my wallet, in the filing cabinet, etc., trying to find my membership card. I finally pull out the drawer where I have been dumping all my "important papers" this semester (it is stuffed to the brim!) but no Ram's Club stuff near the top in there either. Then, I can't get the drawer to close. The drawer is stuck on something and will not budge. It feels as if the drawer has locked itself open. I push, I pull, I hit, I scream. I seriously consider taking a hammer to it!
During this scenario, Melissa calls (in response to an earlier text from me) to "chat" about the details of tomorrow's trip. She is energetic and bubbly, but she soon realizes that I am dangling at the end of a frazzled rope!!! And she cannot get off the phone fast enough!
My attention returns to the drawer. I know I can't get in through the back. I can get in from below, but I'll have to tip the table over, which means moving my printer, etc. All the while I am muttering, "I don't have time for this. I don't have time for this!"
Oh--let's make this a complete I-Love-Lucy moment--while searching for the Ram's Club membership card on my desk, in my desk, and in the drawer of "important papers," I also start finding various piles of stuff sprinkled on my desk, in my desk, and in the drawer that needs to be with my bar application (like my birth certificate, print outs, criminal record, etc.). Just finding this stuff ticks me off because I do NOT have time to screw that up! How pissed am I going to be when I am in North Carolina over the holidays, finalizing my bar application, and half of what I need is sitting on my desk in Lynchburg? Ugh!
Somehow, I finally get the drawer to budge and I just leave all its contents spread out on the floor. I cannot stand to live in such disorder!! But that describes my entire life this semester...total disorder! Anyway, still no Ram's Club card...so I send an email asking "Do we really need that card tomorrow?"
While I'm checking my stack of snail mail (yes, there's a stack...more disorder)...to make sure tickets haven't arrived, I see a credit card statement. This story is too long to tell, but in November I learned that someone used my credit card to make some unauthorized purchases online. The card was canceled and I didn't get hit with any charges, but it's just another frustration. Now, according to the latest bill, I've been hit again. Great....so I try to contact the company about the additional fraudulent charge. While I'm on hold I hear the pleasant "ding dong" of incoming mail. Oh how I hope that's the Ram's Club office replying to my earlier message. But, no; the email is from the law school librarian saying that two books checked out for my law review article (paper #2) must be returned by Dec 17. Isn't that swell...considering my article (paper #2) isn't due until Dec 22 and I can't work on paper #2 until I finish paper #1.
I literally wanted to scream STOP THE MADNESS! I hung up the phone and decided that I really, really, really needed to focus on paper #1 so that I could (hopefully) enjoy tomorrow's trip to Chapel Hill and then work on the law review article (paper #2). In the alternative, I could find a rusty spoon and slit my wrists. Instead, all I could do was just sit at my desk in stunned silence wondering how I had spent so much time this morning doing so many things with so little to show for it. Somewhere over my head I envisioned two mischievious angels saying, "This was fun, but I think she's had enough."
I didn't enjoy the madness of Monday morning, but I have found enjoyed telling it. In compliance with the quote of the day, let me link what I have said to the cheerful things in life....The Ram's Club card was in my wallet--in that special hidden compartment that I put it so that it would not get lost. I finished paper #1 at 3:30 a.m. The trip to Chapel Hill went as planned and made up for all the madness.
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